Indian Railways sees huge demand for special trains' tickets

The Indian Railways was hit with massive demand on Thursday when it started taking bookings for tickets for 40 pairs of special trains scheduled to operate from September 12.

According to the railways, for the past four days, ticket booking had increased. Till Thursday evening, more than 4.5 lakh tickets were booked against 2.4 lakh booked on Wednesday.

"This shows there is a huge demand for tickets in the newly operating trains," said an official in the railways.

The 40 pairs (80 trains) of special trains, which will run in addition to the existing 230 special trains, will connect smaller cities. The railways announced to operate 80 special trains mainly to help migrant workers to return to the cities from their native places

Earlier, Railway Board Chairman V K Yadav said the railways will closely monitor the ticket booking patters. If there is huge demand, the railways will run clone trains to accommodate waitlisted passengers, he said.

As several national-level examinations are going on, the railways is also planning to run more special trains within the states as and when the demand rises.